Chapter 14

The hulking war droid rotated two hundred degrees on his waist coupling and pointed the business end of his blaster arm at Raynar Thul. "Plan point fourteen, Private."

"I'm not a private." Raynar was dressed as usual in the colors of his family's merchant house, in this case scarlet breeches, purple waist sash, and a golden tunic that matched the color of his bristly blond hair. "We're not in the military."

"Point fourteen," 1-1A insisted.

Raynar rolled his eyes. "The crew bursts into the dining area and gets the drop on the Jedi," he said. "Point fifteen. The Jedi yield their weapons."

"Lightsabers," 1-1A corrected. "And I did not ask for point fifteen, soldier."

"I'm not a soldier," Raynar said wearily.

Anakin and the sixteen members of his strike team were sitting on the lush conform couches on the observation deck of Lando Calrissian's private space yacht, rehearsing the plan Anakin had worked out with Luke, Lando, his father, mother, and about half the Jedi on Eclipse. There were a thousand little details, but basically the scheme called for the Lady Luck's crew to "surprise" the Jedi when the Yuuzhan Vong boarded. As the invaders took their prisoners away, a pair of YVH war droids would slip out of the disposal lock with an equipment pod and attach to the bottom of the enemy boarding shuttle. When the shuttle returned to its mothership, the droids would ride along, concealed from view by the shuttle itself. To make certain the droids went undetected, the strike team would stage a diversion.

"Point thirty-two, sir."

Recalling that the droid considered him the group officer, Anakin looked up to find 1-1A's blaster arm leveled at his face. As usual, staring down the black tunnel of death brought his thoughts into sharp focus.

"I use the Force to tear open the weapons locker and pass out blasters," Anakin said. "The blasters will be stored with power packs disengaged."

"This part troubles me," Tenel Ka said. "Surely, the Yuuzhan Vong will find it too convenient."

"Consider the alternative," Lando said, stepping onto the observation deck with them. "My crew is all volunteer, but they won't die just to make things look good."

"Which only proves her point," Ganner said. As the oldest Jedi Knight aboard, he would serve as a decoy commander so that Anakin would remain free - or as free as possible - to quietly lead the group. "The Yuuzhan Vong aren't stupid."

"No, they're not, which is why I can sell this," Lando said. "Disengaging power packs is a common safety procedure - one that anyone about to betray a shipload of Jedi would certainly take."

"This came up in the planning meeting," Anakin said. "Dad thought it was a good idea."

Ganner shrugged, then - much to Anakin's relief - nodded. Serving as a decoy leader had been Ganner's own suggestion, and Anakin's biggest worry so far was that the older man would have trouble separating the two roles.

"I have a question," Raynar said.

"Why am I not surprised," Jaina muttered.

Lando smiled. "Ask away. You need to be confident in this plan."

"Yuuzhan Vong ships are alive, right?" he asked. "So how come this one isn't going to feel the droids attaching?"

"That would be like a shenbit feeling something on itz shell," Bela Hara rasped. "Armor serves no purpose if one feelz pain when it is struck."

"These are hulls, not armor," Raynar objected. "And if the ships are alive -"

"They're not alive like that," Jaina said. "They have brains, but the brains only control certain functions, like computers do aboard our ships. And they don't have feeling in their hulls - at least none of the ships I've been on did."

"They couldn't," Jacen said. "Feeling requires nerve endings, and nerve endings close enough to feel the exterior of the hull would freeze solid. Imagine standing on Hoth barefoot."

This seemed to convince Raynar. He winced and nodded to Lando. "Thanks - now I'm confident."

YVH 1-1A swiveled toward Lowbacca. "Point thirty-three, Private."

Lowbacca groaned something long and low that Anakin recognized as a crude offer involving a memory wipe. The Wookiee's translation droid, Em Teedee, flitted down in front of him.

"Are you sure you want to say that to a war droid, Master Lowbacca?"

When Lowbacca answered with a growl, Em Teedee zipped around behind Tekli and emitted a burst of static that caused 1-1A's photoreceptors to light.

Lando interposed himself between Lowbacca and the war droid. "That's all for now, One-One-A. Stand down." He shot Lowbacca a weary look, then turned to the others. "We've transferred the extra two YVHs and your equipment pod, and Tendra is down on the bridge plotting our route with the crew."

"We're ready," Tahiri said confidently. "One-One-A has seen to that."

Lando's expression grew even more stern. "One-One-A is a droid. He can make you drill and practice, but he can't prepare you - not for something like this."

"I'm not sure I understand," Ulaha Kore ventured. "Our rehearsals have been flawless. Certainly, we must be ready to improvise - every good ensemble is - but current projections give us a ... seventy-two percent chance of success."

Anakin did not want to ask about the margin of error. There were still so many unknowns that he suspected the swing could place their chances either above 100 percent or below 50.

Lando sat across from the Bith and stared into her glassy eyes, his own gaze harder and colder than Anakin had ever seen. "What I'm talking about can't be measured." He glanced at the others. "Things are going to go wrong. No matter how many times we rehearse, no matter how well we plan, this isn't going to happen the way we expect. You'll need to react fast."

"No different from any battle," Ganner said.

"This isn't a battle, Rhysode. Get that into your head." Lando glared at Ganner until Ganner looked away, then continued to glare some more. "You're not going as warriors, you're going as spies. You'll have to do things that don't sit well inside. You can't balk. You can't even hesitate."

"We won't." It was Alema Rar who said this, and Anakin knew by the look in her eyes that she, at least, understood exactly what Lando was telling them, "I won't."

Lando studied the Twi'lek only a moment before nodding. "You've been there, I know." He turned to the others and said, "Watch Alema. She'll do what's necessary, and so should you."

"What are you saying?" Jacen asked. "That any means justify the ends?"

"He means we have only two concerns," Alema said, the silki-ness of her voice belying the steel of her words. "The first is to complete our mission. The second is to return alive."

"That way lies the dark side," Jacen insisted. "If we have no concern for the methods we use to win our goals, we are no better than the Emperor ... or the Yuuzhan Vong."

"Perhaps so," Alema agreed. "But if the path before us is dark, we dare not shy away - not for our own sakes, but for the sake of those who will fall if we fail."

"And for Numa and Lusa and Eelysa and everyone else the voxyn have taken already," Raynar added.

Alema rewarded his support with a vaguely promising smile. "Of course. For their sakes most of all."

"No. Vengeance leads to the dark side," Zekk said. "I won't be a part of something like that."

Everyone started to talk at once, Alema and Raynar arguing that destroying the voxyn and defeating the Yuuzhan Vong would justify any action, Zekk telling them they didn't know what they were talking about, Jacen insisting it was wrong to put the ends before the means. Though the others seemed to fall somewhere between the two poles, they spoke just as loudly, drawing even Eryl Besa and Jovan Drark, an imperturbable Rodian, into the argument on opposite sides. Only the Barabels, squatting in the corner with their reptilian pupils narrowed to vertical slits, seemed in possession of themselves.

Anakin sighed deep inside, then noticed Lando watching him and realized just how wise his mother had been in choosing the arms merchant to ferry them to the enemy. As sincere as Lando's warning about not hesitating might be, there was a hidden agenda behind his words. Knowing the strike team was going to have this argument eventually, he had intentionally provoked it while they could take time to work things through - and now he was waiting for Anakin to solve the problem.

"Quiet." Anakin waited a moment, then tried again, and when that failed, shouted, "Shut up! That's an order!"

His rudeness, and the Force he used to augment his voice, finally got through to the others. Before the argument could resume, he continued, "Nobody is turning to the dark side on this mission." He glared at Raynar and Alema. "Is that clear?"

"I didn't mean to suggest we should," Alema began quietly. "Only that we can't shy -"

"Is that clear?" Anakin demanded again.

Alema's lekku curled at the tips, but she pushed her lip out and said, "Of course, Anakin."

Anakin felt more than glimpsed the strange smirk that came to Tahiri's face. While she was not fond of any of the strike team's female Jedi, she seemed to truly dislike Alema. Deciding to puzzle over the matter later, he turned to Raynar and cocked his brow.

Raynar nodded. "Fine. Who'd want to anyway?"

Anakin accepted this and turned to Zekk and Jacen. "But Lando's right. We may have to do some things we don't feel good about, and do them quickly. If you can't live with that, maybe you should catch a ride home on the freighter."

"What kind of things?" Jacen asked. "If we talk about our limits now -"

"Jacen!" Anakin hissed. "Can you do this?"

Instead of answering, Jacen looked around for support. He found it, of course, especially from Zekk and Tenel Ka, but Anakin began to think even his brother's special talent for handling animals might not be worth the discord he would bring to the team. He looked to Lando for guidance, but found only the expressionless face of a seasoned gambler. Anakin would have to solve this problem on his own; where they were going, there would be no advice from old heroes of the Rebellion.

Anakin took a deep breath, using a Jedi relaxation technique to clear his mind so he could concentrate. Throughout the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, he and Jacen had been drifting apart, until they had reached a point where they had barely been able to speak to each other without an undercurrent of resentment and blame. Those wounds were only now beginning to heal. The last thing Anakin wanted to do was remove his brother from the team and open them again, but he had to think of the mission - and of the others who would be on it.

Anakin turned to his brother. "Jacen, maybe -"

"Anakin, I've had a brainstorm!" Though Jaina's tone was enthusiastic, Anakin could feel his sister's agitation through the Force. Nearly as troubled by the schism as the brothers themselves, she had spoken to them both about trying to bridge it. "You know how we've been worried about the breaking?"

"Yeah?" Anakin answered cautiously. Everyone on Eclipse knew how much value the Yuuzhan Vong placed on trying to break the will of Jedi prisoners. His biggest concern was that their "captors" would start it aboard the transfer vessel, and that someone in the group would not be able to endure it long enough to cross the frontier. "What's that have to do with what we're talking about?"

"You remember how we used that telepathic Force union during that first Yuuzhan Vong attack at Dubrillion?" Jaina asked. The three siblings had reached out to each other through the Force to share perceptions. "What if Jacen could help us all do that? We could use the link to bolster each other mentally and emotionally."

"This is a good plan," Tenel Ka said. "Every interrogator knows that mental isolation is key to breaking a victim's resistance."

Anakin saw the potential - just as he saw how desperately his sister was trying to prevent the gulf between him and Jacen from widening any farther. Cautiously, he asked, "How can we do that?"

Jaina's expression grew confident. "I've been talking to Tesar and his hatchmates about the Wild Knights' combat tactics." She glanced in the Barabels' direction. "I think we could adapt a couple to our situation."

"Yes, this one thinkz we could," Tesar said. "Perhapz we could even use the bond to create a big meld-fight."

Anakin raised his brow. Meld-fight was what the Barabels had called their incredible display of cohesion during the confused battle at Froz. "An interesting possibility."

"But we'd need Jacen," Jaina pressed. "He's the only one with enough empathic power to bind us all together."

Or to drive us apart, Anakin thought. But, as he studied the expectant faces watching him, he realized much of the damage had been done already. Sending Jacen back now would not only disappoint his sister, it would alienate Zekk, Tenel Ka, and many of the others who shared his concerns about the dark side. It would also widen the gulf between the two brothers - and Anakin wanted that about as much as he wanted another Yuuzhan Vong slave seed implanted in his head.

"Jacen, you have to do what I say when I say it." Anakin caught his brother's gaze and held it. "If something feels wrong, it's on my head, not yours. If you can't live with that, I'm sorry, but you can't come."

Having sensed how close Anakin had been to sending him home before, Jacen knew better than to hesitate. He nodded and said, "I trust your judgment, Anakin. I really do."

 

Chapter 15

The data readouts went wild, then Danni was slammed back into her g-seat as Wonetun put them into a tight turn. A stocky Brubb reptoid from gravity-heavy Baros, Wonetun kept the inertial compensators dialed down to 92 percent because he liked to know when the blastboat shuddered; if someone in the crew got sick or blacked out for a few seconds, that was better than stressing the ancient hull welds. Danni fought to keep the purple out of her vision and strained to watch her display. The readouts continued to dance. It didn't mean she had solved her riddle - Saba Sebatyne had not even said there was a yammosk present - but it meant something.

The gunners vaporized the skips with a volley of stutter-fire from the blastboat's big laser cannons, then Danni's skin prickled with sudden apprehension. Still, she resisted the temptation to look away from her instruments. The readouts were rising and falling in intermittent surges that looked suspiciously contrived, and Danni would not let herself be distracted. Her fingers began to fly over her control panels, defining sensor sweeps and activating recorders.

"Saba, could there be a yammosk out there?" She still did not look away from her instruments. "Please tell me there's a yammosk out there."

"Oh yes, there is a yammosk. No doubt." Saba's tone was distracted, and she did not seem to catch the significance of Danni's question. Speaking into the blastboat's comm unit, she ordered, "Wild Knightz, prepare for return to the Jolly Man. Break left on this one's mark ..."

Danni braced herself. The Jolly Man was not the cramped blastboat in which she was riding, but a fast-freighter standing some distance off in a pocket of space dust. It served the squadron as a mobile base, and to carry the Vigilances and Howlrunners - which had no hyperdrives - into and out of battle.

"Three, two, mark!"

Danni strained to keep her head turned toward her data screens as Wonetun whipped the blastboat around. Several more readouts jumped to life, hovered there an instant, then dropped back to close-zero. When the data bars she had been watching answered with a flurry of oscillations, Danni ruled out coincidence. She was seeing a comm code, not some random graviton eddy.

Saba must have felt her excitement through the Force, for the Barabel rasped, "You have found something, Danni Quee?"

"I think so." The blastboat's hull thrummed as the gunners opened up. "Gravitic modulation. That's how the yammosk communicates."

"Ah." For the Barabel, it was almost a cry of excitement. Crimson flashes filled the ship interior as plasma balls started to burst against the shields. "If this one may make a suggestion, you should open a comm feed so your data will not be lost."

Danni tore her eyes away from her data screens. "Sith sabers!"

Curving through space to intercept them was what at first looked like an entire ring of asteroids, but which the plasma-burping nodules on the closest monoliths quickly identified as an enemy fleet. She could not believe even the Wild Knights warranted such an effort - then she realized they did not.

For the past few days, the squadron had been working a choke point not far from the gem-mining world of Arkania, ambushing Yuuzhan Vong corvettes as they felt their way out of the war zone. Everyone had assumed these patrols were merely scouting New Republic positions, but now it seemed obvious they had been clearing an invasion route. Danni did not need a galactic holograph to know that capturing Arkania would put the Yuuzhan Vong close to both the Perlemian Trade Route and the Hydian Way, and in position to threaten much of the Colonies region. She opened the data feed to the Jolly Man, then added an urgent alert for the subspace emergency band.

The leading elements of the fleet fired a volley of magma missiles, forcing Wonetun to put the blastboat into a stomach-churning series of loops and rolls. Saba ordered him to turn up the inertial compensator so she could stay conscious. The enemy fleet was now so close it looked like one huge spray of yorik coral.

One of the large lumps opened its nose and vomited grutchins, half-meter insects resembling turfhoppers. The blastboat's gunners switched targets, laying a barrage of laserfire in the creatures' path. Those things could eat through a titanium hull in seconds.

Saba spoke into the comm unit. "There is our target - the cruiser at the bottom of the formation. Do you see it?"

"The one on the end?" Drif Lij, pilot of one of the squadron's old T-65 X-wings, commed.

"No, that they will expect," Saba said. "Three shipz in. He is ahead of himself."

"Got it," Drif replied.

A flurry of comm clicks confirmed everyone else did, too, and Danni sensed the squadron's fear changing to resolve.

Saba said, "Glowball in five, four ..."

Izal Waz, an Arcona gunner with a nasty salt habit, stopped firing and drew inward. Though his compound eyes were incapable of distinguishing shapes, their sensitivity to movement made him the best gunner in the squadron. As Saba continued her countdown, those golden eyes grew glassy and distant, like they did during a salt binge, and the veins on his anvil-shaped head popped in concentration.

"Mark," Saba said.

A white sphere of illumination engulfed the blastboat. Danni thought shield overload, but Wonetun straightened out and they accelerated. When no plasma balls came boiling through the hull, she looked outside and found the squadron camouflaged in a sun-bright orb.

"What's this?" Danni gasped.

"You have seen ghost sunz?" Saba asked.

"Parhelions? Of course," Danni said. "Sometimes from two suns at once."

"It is like that," Saba explained. "Izal Waz callz it his glowball. He is using the Force to collect light."

Danni eyed Izal with newfound respect. "What's it do?"

"What does it do?" Saba sissed at this. "It hides us. Is that not enough?"

Though the sphere had to be a kilometer across, the Wild Knights were clustered close to the blastboat, a dozen ghostly shapes pooling defenses. Drif s X-wing hung just meters away. Its ion engines were pouring blue efflux into the glowball, feeding the intensity of the general radiance. Plasma balls and magma missiles continued to pour blindly into the glowball, but most missed by a wide margin, and those that came close were defeated by the Wild Knights' combined defenses.

"Does the Jolly Man have enough data yet?" Saba asked.

Danni checked her instruments. The readouts were dancing like crazy. "This is good stuff," she said. "The longer we stay, the better."

Saba's diamond-shaped pupils narrowed. "But do they have enough?"

Danni did a quick statistical calculation in her head, then nodded. "We could use a higher significance level, but -"

"We must train you to fly an A-wing, Danni Quee. The Wild Knightz could use someone as crazy as you." Saba turned and commed, "Shorthopperz, break for the Jolly Man. We'll see you at home."

Shielded by the still-expanding glowball, the squadron's two Howlrunners and three Vigilances broke for the fast-freighter.

"Passive sensors, no lasers," Saba ordered. She turned to Danni and pointed at Izal, who was slumped in a trance in the upper cannon turret. "Change places. The glowball requires his concentration."

Danni eyed the big Arcona, trying to imagine how she wras going to move someone more than twice her size without breaking his concentration. "Uh, I don't think I can lift him," she said. "Maybe you could -"

"This one could, but she told you to." Saba glared out of one dark eye. "You are Jedi, Danni Quee. Size matterz not."

Danni swallowed. She had been studying the Force for almost two years now, but no one seemed able to explain the theory behind it - even Luke always spoke of feeling and doing, never how or why - and it was still the last solution that came to mind. An impatient tongue began to flicker between Saba's pebbly lips. Danni let out a long relaxing breath, then pictured the tall Arcona slipping out of his seat and coming to a rest in the one opposite her, then reached out with the Force and made it so.

To her relief, Izal settled into the chair as though he had moved himself, and the glowball remained intact. Danni started to climb into the turret as ordered, but Saba caught her by the shoulder and pulled her back down.

"Do you never train, Danni Quee?" She climbed into the turret. "This one will save us herself. Watch. Learn."

Danni did not understand until a moment later, when a volley of magma missiles came streaking in and her heart leapt into her throat. She felt the Y-wing weapon operators reach out and start nudging, and then there was no time for questions. A crimson spiral loomed large. Saba pushed, and it shot past meters above her turret. Someone else redirected a grutchin, and Danni spent the next eternity watching the Barabel use the Force to push, lift, and turn Yuuzhan Vong missiles.

Finally, Saba asked, "What does your machine say now, Danni Quee? Has the yammosk seen through our ruse?"

Danni stepped over to look at her display. The gravity arrow readouts were dancing.

"Same as before," she reported. "The yammosk seems to be giving orders, everyone else is quiet. What that means, I have no idea."

Saba bared her needle-teeth and sissed in satisfaction. "It meanz it thinkz it has us." She dropped out of the turret and motioned Danni back into the gunner's seat. "Ready all weapons. Back out and drop the block on this one's mark. Three, two ..."

Danni barely climbed into the turret before "mark." The cargo door thumped open, expelling a two-ton square of durasteel, and the blastboat decelerated and slammed her into the transparisteel dome, and she grabbed for the cannon triggers and pushed herself into the firing seat. Outside, the sunlike sphere of the glowball was shrinking away, with a comet's tail of magma missiles, plasma balls, and grutchins trailing behind.

An uproarious rasp erupted from the blastboat's main deck, where Saba stood over the instrument panel, scaly shoulders shaking as the data readouts danced.

"Oh, that got them," she sissed. "That got them good."

A plasma ball erupted against the shields, and Drif s voice came over the comm speaker.

"Danni, the hostiles are behind us."

"Sorry."

She spun the turret around to see the Wild Knights' fighters looping up to meet a dozen coralskippers. Pointing more than aiming, she squeezed the triggers and felt the twin laser cannons come to life. Long streaks of crimson stained the starlit darkness, forcing the skips to roll and twist as they descended on the squadron.

The blastboat jerked forward, then Wonetun announced, "The cruiser wants to pull our shields."

"Squadron, form on the blastboat on this one's mark," Saba said. "Five -"

The blastboat slipped backward, and Wonetun reported, "Shields gone."

"Twoonemark!" Saba finished.

The blastboat accelerated. Danni's laser cannons went wild, catching a coralskipper by sheer chance and reducing it to pebbles. The X-wings and Y-wings looped back to encircle the blastboat, masking the larger ship behind their own shields.

"Keep firing, Danni," Drif urged. "You've got our backs."

Danni swung the cannons toward the largest lump in the sky - a corvette analog angling down to cut them off - and squeezed the triggers. Her crimson bolts shot straight into its nose - and vanished into a black hole. She strafed the hull at full power, back and forth, back and forth. The shielding crews continued to catch her attacks, but the corvette fell behind as its dovin basals diverted to protecting the ship.

Danni fired a few more seconds, until the battle drew too close to the enemy cruiser, and the corvette and coralskippers broke off. She swung her cannons forward. A mere two hundred meters distant, the glowball was as large as a class-three comet, and space beyond was filled by the Yuuzhan Vong cruiser - a lumpy silhouette as big as some moons, spewing plasma and magma into the glowball. The golden sphere flattened and began to shrink as the enemy shielding crews drew it toward one of their singularities.

"Ready missiles and torpedoes. Spread pattern," Saba ordered. "Hold ... hold ..."

The glowball distorted into an undulating flower pattern and shrank to the size of Danni's thumbnail.

"Fire all!" Saba commanded. "Cancel glowball."

The glowball blinked out of existence, then Izal thumped to the deck, exhausted. The Yuuzhan Vong cruiser fell ominously dark as the weapons crews struggled to retrain their weapons. The Wild Knights launched a second, then third volley of concussion missiles and proton torpedoes, and suddenly the darkness ahead was all spiraling ion trails and looping plasma trails.

"Darken blast tinting." Saba used the Force to lift Izal back into a seat, then swung around and strapped him in. "Prepare for concussion impact."

"Concussion impact?" Danni cried, grabbing her seat restraints. "You're ramming it?"

"Ramming it?" Saba erupted into a fit of sissing, and even Wonetun rumbled with laughter. "Danni Quee, you are so crazy!"

Then Danni remembered the block - the block the Yuuzhan Vong could not have seen when they grabbed the glowball - the two tons of durasteel accelerated to no small percentage of lightspeed. The energy on impact would be equal to mass multiplied by velocity squared, divided by ...

Danni was still doing the calculations when space turned white.

 

Chapter 16

The coufee fell, and the sanctum rilled with the strange odor of alien blood and an endless, undulating wail. Tsavong Lah waited until the priests began their real work, then stepped away from the spatter pit so he could focus his thoughts on the bungled sneak attack.

"You do not wish to know Yun-Yammka's will?" Vergere asked, one eye still fixed on the howling slave.

"The Slayer's will is no mystery. How to accomplish it ... that is another matter." He waved his hand toward the priests and their sacrifice. "They serve in their way, I in mine."

Vergere's beaklike mouth cracked open in what Tsavong Lah had come to recognize as a mocking smile. "You doubt the accuracy of Vaecta's seers?"

"Only the gods are infallible." Tsavong Lah glanced into the pit and smiled at what was happening there. "The priests are faithful servants, but until they can tell me how the Jeedai work their magic, I must do my own work."

"You make too much of these Jedi."

Vergere looked back to the spatter pit and fixed her eye on the shrieking sacrifice. The Ithorian's T-shaped head curled in her direction, his gaze lingering on hers as his eyes grew glassy and distant. His screams subsided much sooner than they should have, and he slipped into that strange tranquility that sometimes came over slaves even in their most anguished moments. A priest stepped in front of the Ithorian and tried unsuccessfully to draw him back into his pain.

"A pity for the invasion." Vergere's tone was that of a thwarted child. "The priests are sure to take a dim view of that."

Tsavong Lah glanced down to find her feathers hanging flat in disappointment. Sometimes she seemed more a Yuuzhan Vong to him than his own warriors.

"It was a Jeedai squadron that intercepted the invasion of Arkania," he said, returning to her earlier remark. "And it was only two Jeedai who forced us to sacrifice New Plympto."

"Then destroy the Talfaglion convoys," Vergere said. "That will draw them out."

Tsavong Lah raised his brow. "And sacrifice Nom Anor?"

"It would not be such a sacrifice."

Tsavong Lah smiled faintly. "You have high ambitions for such an unassuming creature."

Vaecta stepped over to their side of the spatter pit and looked up. A stoop-shouldered female with an aged and wrinkled face, she did not bow to Tsavong Lah or cross her blood-streaked arms in salute. During a ritual, the priestess was beholden to Lord Shimrra himself and would die - gladly - before offering deference to any other.

"The slave's silence will not please the Slayer. You should not go through with the attack."

Tsavong Lah looked away from her. "The decision is mine."

"Lord Shimrra has made that clear," she agreed. "I was given to believe Lord Shimrra also made clear you should consider the will of the gods in all things."

Tsavong Lah continued to look away. "But the decision is mine."

Vaecta did not disagree.

"Good." Tsavong Lah looked back to the priestess. "You will ask Yun-Yammka to punish the commanders who allowed the Jeedai squadron to escape. I will order their replacements to make a halfhearted assault on the planet and withdraw."

"If you tease Yun-Yammka, he will want lives," Vaecta warned. "Many lives."

"Of course." Though Tsavong Lah felt certain the god of war would understand the value of a good feint, it was better to be safe about these things. "He shall have eight thousand."

"Twenty thousand would be better," Vaecta retorted.

"Twenty, then."

Tsavong Lah turned and left the sanctum, already adjusting his plans to accommodate the ritual. The extra sacrifices would require a full escort instead of a single ship, putting an unnecessary strain on his already overextended logistics train.

Vergere waddled up to his side. "Why take that from Vaecta? Even with reinforcements, the New Republic can't hold Arkania. Capture it and make a fool of her."

Tsavong Lah whirled on Vergere. "You question my judgment?" He raised his foot as though to kick her. "You think you know better than I how to win battles?"

Vergere gave his leg a contemptuous glance, then bristled her feathers and moved a step closer. "If you have a better idea, all you need do is say so."

It was all Tsavong Lah could do not to burst out laughing. "Around you? I think not." Supreme commanders and high prefects trembled at his slightest frown, yet Vergere, this ugly little bird, dismissed his fury as though it were nothing. "You, I must watch. It will amuse me, if nothing else."

 

Chapter 17

Lando let his sweaty palm brush against his pant leg, then transferred the datapad to the somewhat drier hand and displayed the screen to the subaltern of the Yuuzhan Vong boarding party. The picture showed seventeen young Jedi Knights crowded around the Lady Luck's dining table. Though their bowls were filled with green thakitillo - Lando had ordered his chef to serve only the finest fare on this journey - none of the Jedi were eating. Most were not even holding their spoons.

"They seem agitated," the subaltern said. A brutish warrior with a fringe of spindly black hair, he stared at the datapad from arm's length, as though keeping his distance would prevent the instrument from defiling him. "You are sure they do not know we are here?"

"They're Jedi," Lando answered, feigning irritation at a foolish question. "They can certainly sense my crew's apprehension, but I won't claim to know what's in their minds. All I can say is the viewports have been closed the entire trip."

After a moment, the subaltern nodded to himself and turned to an unarmed - but heavily armored - superior waiting outside the Lady Luck's air lock.

"Eia dag lightsabers, Duman Yaght. Yenagh doa Jeedai."

The superior stepped out of the red-ribbed transfer tunnel. A little smaller than his subordinates, this one had sculpted his face into a gridwork of raised scars. Like the subaltern of the boarding party, he wore two small villips on his shoulders instead of the usual one. He stopped across from Lando and looked expectant.

"This is Fitzgibbon Lane, holder of the Stardream" the subaltern said, supplying the false names Lando was traveling under. "He is the one who sent the message."

Lando stared at the subaltern and waited for him to introduce his leader. When the warrior grew uncomfortable and looked down, Lando shifted his gaze to the superior and continued to wait. As nervous as he was about this particular swindle, he knew better than to open negotiations on anything less than equal footing.

After a moment, the superior said, "I am Duman Yaght, commander of the Exquisite Death. You have some Jeedai for me?"

"For your warmaster," Lando corrected. Taking the commander's presence as a sign of eagerness, he turned the datapad toward the Yuuzhan Vong and dangled the bait. "I have seventeen, in fact."

The subaltern scowled and reached out to knock the profane instrument aside, but the commander raised a hand.

"No. This I must see for myself."

Duman Yaght peered into the vidscreen, where Anakin and a few others were halfheartedly spooning thakitillo into their mouths. The strike team had not been warned about the boarding, in part because Lando wanted their reactions to appear genuine, in part because the Yuuzhan Vong had come so quickly. The Lady Luck had been drifting along beside an outbound comet, waiting for the nav computer to plot the final leg of their journey, when the boarding shuttle came swinging out of the tail. It had headed straight for the docking portal, a wormlike transfer tunnel already extending to make contact.

There was barely time to alert Tendra before the bridge alarm announced contact at the air lock. Lando authorized equalization and rushed back to find the subaltern already opening the exterior hatch. A check on his datapad revealed a corvette-sized coral ship swinging over the comet to cover the shuttle's approach, and Lando realized the vessel was lying in wait when he entered the system. He had almost felt foolish - until he realized what the clever maneuver told him about the eagerness of the Yuuzhan Vong commander.

"Satisfied?" Lando asked. "I'd ask them to levitate, but that might give us away."

"That won't be necessary. We have already confirmed their nature."

"Really?" Lando did not like the sound of that, but knew better than to ask for details. "If you want them, let the Talfaglion hostages go."

"If I want them, I will take them," Duman Yaght said.

Lando raised his datapad and depressed a function key. "We both know what seventeen Jedi can do with warning. Don't make me release this button."

The commander stepped closer. "You think that would matter tome?"

"Of course not." Lando sneered with more confidence than he felt. "Even a space boulder like the Exquisite Death would destroy this barge in about three seconds. And what a pity that would be - no sacrifices for Yun-Yammka, and no more Jedi deliveries for your warmaster."

"More Jeedai deliveries?" The blue beneath Duman Yaght's eyes grew brighter. "You can bring more?"

"Only if Talfaglio is spared - I'm not doing this because I like you," Lando said. "If you knew to intercept me here, then you know who I am. You know I can deliver."

Duman Yaght lowered his chin in a vague nod. "I heard your message, yes."

In the message, sent to what the Wraiths had identified as a Yuuzhan Vong listening post, Lando had claimed to be a Talfaglion native active in the Great River Jedi rescue organization. He had given just enough details of past operations to sound like a low-level pilot, then rambled on for a few minutes about how the Jedi were betraying him by allowing Talfaglio's destruction. He had finished by naming a time and place and promising that anyone meeting him would be well rewarded.

Duman's eyes remained fixed on the datapad, where the Jedi were beginning to discuss something in low tones. "You must know I cannot make promises on the warmaster's behalf."

"Then go ask for authority and meet me at the rendezvous," Lando said. The next step had to be the Yuuzhan Vong's; the mark had to think he was the one pushing things. "I'm not turning them over until I have his promise."

The Yuuzhan Vong considered this a moment, then said, "You won't make it that far." He tapped the vid display with a blackened fingernail. "Your Jeedai are nervous. Let me take them now, and we will see what happens. The warmaster is certain to be interested - I can promise you that."

"I don't know," Lando said, setting the hook. "I don't see how you can handle so many Jedi aboard that little rock."

"How we handle the slaves will not be your concern," Duman Yaght said.

"It will be when they escape and hunt me down," Lando said.

"They will not escape. You may be assured of that."

"Sure I can," Lando scoffed. Now that he had his mark pushing him, he could afford to take a few risks, and he wanted to know why Duman Yaght had been so quick to confirm he was carrying Jedi. "Maybe I should just go to the rendezvous point -"

"That is not one of your choices." Duman Yaght's voice remained mild. "You may turn them over to me and know that they will reach the warmaster, who may or may not be sufficiently impressed by your token of faith to spare Talfaglio's refugees. Or you may release that button and be assured that when we die, a million of your people will die with us."

Lando looked down and stroked his lip, not feigning his thoughtfulness at all. Duman Yaght's confidence in his ability to control the Jedi concerned him, but he had pushed his quest for information as far as he dared. He could release the function key on his datapad and sound the abort alarm; he would almost certainly die, but they had planned for just such an emergency. The transfer deck's inner hatch would seal automatically, then the detonite charges concealed in the exterior hatch of the air lock would explode into the boarding shuttle. Duman Yaght and the boarding party would be sucked out into space, and the Lady Luck would shoot around the comet and be in hyperspace before the Exquisite Death realized what was happening.

But the mission would be lost, more Jedi doomed - and why? Because Lando had an uneasy feeling about something Duman Yaght said? He shook his head in resignation.

"If you put it like that," Lando said. It was not his place to abort the mission - not with so much riding on it, not even with the children of his best friend at risk. "But I'm no fool. I know how this works."

"Good," Duman Yaght said. "Then you also know that the lives of your fellows will rest on your shoulders. I'll give you a villip so you can contact me when the next delivery is ready."

Lando's only response was a sigh of disgust.

"No need for rude noises." Duman Yaght grabbed the back of Lando's neck in what may have been a gesture of domination or friendship - or both. "This will work out well for both of us."

The Yuuzhan Vong waved his subaltern and the boarding party forward, but Lando quickly blocked their way.

"No, I've got this all planned out," he said. "My ship, my way - or you might as well call the volcano cannons down."

The subaltern glowered, but looked to his commander for orders.

"As he wishes," Duman Yaght smirked. "His ship, his way."

 

Jacen had sensed only the single stirring in the Force, but everyone else had felt it, too, and now it was gone. He lifted another spoonful of green thakitillo to his mouth, but hardly tasted the zest of the dissolving curds. Even without Alema's abrupt paleness and fluttering lekku, he would have recognized the burst of hungry agitation. Cilghal theorized that the initial disturbance came from the voxyn reaching out to find its prey, but Jacen wondered if it might be something simpler. To him, it felt more like raw animal excitement.

It was a feeling surprisingly close to that held by a number of Jacen's fellow Jedi. The members of the strike team had opened their emotions to each other the instant they sensed the voxyn, and he could feel the eagerness of Ganner, Zekk, the Barabels, Eryl Besa, even Raynar to destroy the creature. Others - Tahiri, Lowbacca, Tekli, Ulaha - were surprised at how fast things were happening. Alema Rar was terrified - more of herself than the creature. Tenel Ka was grimly determined, Anakin absorbed in concerns about everyone else, Jovan Drark eager to begin the game. To Rodians, everything was a game.

Only Jaina, whose feelings Jacen could always sense through their bond as twins, seemed calm. Whatever came, warning or no warning, voxyn or not, they would handle it - or not. They had cast their fate to the Force, and now they had no choice but to trust where it carried them. It was a strange sort of composure born of battle and death and suffering, the grim serenity of the soldier, who was both maker and victim of the all-devouring cataclysm.

Jacen put another spoonful of thakitillo in his mouth. Beyond the dining area, he could feel the crew's fear, Lando's apprehension about something unknown to him, Tendra's guilt as she approached the cabin door. He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth and crushed the curds, then savored the tangy explosion of their melting.

The galley door hissed open. Yarsroot, the ship's Ho'Din chef, stepped into the dining cabin with his human assistant, both holding blasters behind their backs. It was the signal to follow the primary plan. Jacen extended himself to the other Jedi, going beyond the simple emotional connection the Barabels had taught them to a much deeper level, melding with the others until it seemed to him that he was them and they were all him. As the meld coordinator, he was to a certain extent trusting the others with his body; they had discovered that, at times, he might become so consumed by the sensations and feelings of others that he forgot to keep track of himself.

Lando's tall wife entered the dining room from the main cabin, a nasty G-9 power blaster cradled in her arms. Zekk and Jovan instantly pushed away from the table and reached for their lightsabers. Tendra loosed a flurry of blue stun bolts, blasting both Jedi and red-haired Eryl into the wall - all as planned. Lowbacca and Krasov tried to rise and were dropped by stun shots from Yarsroot and his assistant, also as planned.

Feeling the impact of each bolt through the team's battle meld, Jacen groaned and would have tumbled from his chair, had Tenel Ka not steadied him.

That was not part of the plan.

Tendra flipped her power blaster to full automatic/lethal. "Anyone else moves - or even looks my way - you all die." She glanced at Ganner, supporting the role he was to play as the decoy leader. "That clear?"

"As transparisteel." Ganner kept his eyes fixed on the center of the table. "Do as she says."

"Good." Tendra motioned two crew members behind her into the room. "Now sit very still and no one gets hurt."

The two crew members started around the table, unclipping the strike team's lightsabers and tossing them down the food disposal chute - along with Lowbacca's protesting translation droid, Em Teedee. Jacen experienced a moment of panic from Anakin and realized they had just run into their first problem. The disposal chutes still led to the flushlock instead of their weapons pod; they had intended to make the changeover after the evening meal. Jacen reached out to Jaina and moved some of her serenity toward Anakin. Nothing to be done about it. Follow the Force.

"Tendra, what's all this about?" Ganner asked. This wasn't in the script, but Ganner knew what was needed - Jacen could feel it. Ganner always knew. "Haven't we been good guests?"

"The best," Tendra replied. "Fitzgibbon just doesn't like cowards."

Jacen did not even feel Yarsroot's assistant remove his lightsaber; he only saw it go down the chute with the others.

"Cowards?" Ganner asked. "What are you -"

"Talfaglio," Tendra said simply. A native of nearby Sacorria, she did not need to work to make herself sound angry. "Now shut that fly hangar of yours and stand up. There's someone who wants to see you - all of you."

Back to the script. Jacen felt himself stand and turn toward the door, Tenel Ka close behind. She would be his watcher, her one arm strong enough to carry them both. Tendra stepped aside and motioned the strike team through the door. Down the corridor past the guest cabins and up three stairs onto the transfer deck. Things would be crowded - air lock, escape pods, who knows how many Yuuzhan Vong. Would the voxyn be there? Probably not - nobody could feel it yet.

Alema began to tremble, frightened not of the Yuuzhan Vong - she had killed dozens with her own hands, eluded hundreds more - but of herself. She had not expected to encounter a voxyn on the transit ship. Could she face one again, knowing what the first had done to her sister?

Jacen fed her the feelings of Raynar, who was comforting himself with the knowledge that the Twi'lek had done this stuff many times before. She had denied the Yuuzhan Vong New Plympto. She would get them through this. Alema's lekku stopped shaking, and Jacen followed the unconscious Jedi - who were being levitated by five of their fellows - past Lando's suite toward the guest cabins.

A door slid open behind Tenel Ka, and something blunt caught her between the shoulder blades. Jacen dropped to his knees and started to black out, then realized it was Tenel Ka's body he was feeling and reached out to the others, calling upon their strength to keep them both conscious. When his vision cleared, Yuuzhan Vong filled the corridor.

At the head of the line, Ganner lunged for Lando. "You double-crossing -"

The blunt edge of an amphistaff caught the big Jedi across the back of the head, dropping him into a dark pit before Jacen could call on the others to keep him conscious. Not in the script - but probably for the best.

 

Point thirty: The crew departs. Tendra and Yarsroot retreated into the ship, leaving the strike team in the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. There were only six guards on the transfer deck with Lando. The rest were down in the access corridor behind Anakin, flanking the long line of Jedi. Tesar Sebatyne, who was second in line, hesitated at the transfer deck and stared down at Ganner's unconscious form.

A Yuuzhan Vong warrior, a large one with a spindly fringe of black hair, grabbed the Barabel and shoved him into the boarding suite. "Forward - all of you!"

Anakin suppressed a smirk and stepped over Ganner's unconscious form. Tesar had played his role perfectly, forcing the Yuuzhan Vong to order the strike team to do exactly what the strike team wanted to. Anakin followed the Barabel to the far end of the deck and took his place across from the weapons locker. Tahiri and the other Jedi crowded after him, packing themselves just tightly enough to make room for the whole team - and not much else.

So far, events were proceeding more or less as planned. True, their lightsabers had been dropped into the flushlock. But Tendra and Yarsroot had taken extra "precautions" during the turnover to give the war droids time to retrieve the weapons. Anakin could feel the strike team's confidence growing with every success. The empathic sharing strengthened everyone's resolve and bound them to a common purpose, just as the Barabels had said it would, and Jacen was keeping him in touch with the group. Anakin sensed Alema Rar's resolve harden and shared Tenel Ka's surprise when she was struck from behind, and now he perceived Lowie's mind stirring. No sooner had Anakin begun to worry about how a groggy Wookiee would impact their plans than he sensed Jacen reaching out to calm their waking friend. This was going to work great.

Once the crew was safely out of sight, Lando turned to a scar-faced Yuuzhan Vong and gestured at a fiberplast crate in front of the Lady Luck's escape pod. "Perhaps the commander of the Exquisite Death would allow me to present him with a small gift?"

It was a subtle variation on point thirty-one, but a useful one. No one had expected the commander of the transit ship to supervise the transfer personally. This officer was an eager one.

When the enemy commander did not object, Lando removed several pairs of stun cuffs from the crate. Anakin expelled a long calming breath, using a Jedi relaxation technique to let a spike of anxiety flow out with it.

Lando held the cuffs in front of the commander. "A little something to keep the prisoners in line, Duman Yaght."

Duman Yaght regarded the cuffs with a sneer. "What are those profanities?"

"Wrist restraints." Lando opened a metal sleeve and displayed it proudly. "You see, I've thought of everything."

Duman knocked the stun cuffs aside. "We have our own bindings." He glared at Ganner's unconscious form, which one of the strike team had levitated and placed in the center of the transfer deck with the other unconscious Jedi Knights. "Bindings that teach as well as restrain."

Point thirty-two: The enemy acknowledges the offer. Anakin turned his palm toward the weapons locker and reached out with the Force, buckling the door panel inward. Lando and the Yuuzhan Vong spun toward the screal of crumpling durasteel. Ulaha closed the pressure hatch at her end of the transfer deck, sealing the rest of the enemy boarding party out in the access corridor.

Anakin twisted the door free and slammed it into Duman Yaght's head. One Yuuzhan Vong warrior stepped over to defend his stunned commander, and the others - finding the space too cramped for amphistaffs - reached for their coufees. The strike team counterattacked in a flurry of kicks and blows, taking full advantage of the battle meld to keep the enemy too busy dodging and blocking to actually draw a weapon.

With the Force, Anakin jerked the blaster pistols from their locker mounts and hurled them across the transfer deck into the grasps often waiting Jedi. From the other side of the sealed hatch came muffled shouts and metallic thuds as the rest of the boarding party tried to break into the transfer deck, then Tesar half turned, whipping his thick reptilian tail into the ankles of Duman Yaght and his defender and sweeping both Yuuzhan Vong off their feet. He leveled his blaster at the commander's head.

"Call off your scarheads," the Barabel rasped.

Duman Yaght's eyes flared with anger, and his guard, now lying behind Tesar, reached for his coufee. Anakin started to shout a warning, but Jacen had already felt his alarm and relayed it through the battle meld. The Barabel pivoted and brought his heel down, a long spike folding out to pin the warrior's hand to the durasteel floor.

The tumult on the other side of the hatch suddenly fell silent, and Anakin guessed the situation on the transfer deck had been relayed to the officers of the Exquisite Death. He leveled his blaster pistol at Duman Yaght's wounded protector and began to count. The war droids would need at least a thirty-second distraction to slip out of the Lady Luck's disposal lock with the equipment pod and attach to the enemy shuttle. Anakin would have liked to give them a safety margin of twice that, but sixty seconds seemed like an eternity.

Tesar took his time pulling his heel spike out of the guard's hand, then pressed his blaster to Duman Yaght's face.

"Tell your warriorz to drop their weaponz," the Barabel rasped.

Duman Yaght surprised Anakin and everyone else by responding with an admiring smirk. "Impressive. The reputation of the Jeedai is well deserved."

Tesar's only response was a hiss. If not for the battle meld, Anakin would have thought the Barabel confused, but he sensed through Jacen that Tesar was only stalling for time.

Two seconds later, Tesar snarled, "This one wantz surrender, not complimentz."

"Then you are to be disappointed," Duman replied. "You must know that before allowing seventeen Jeedai to escape, I'll destroy this ship and everyone aboard it - myself included."

"Wait a second," Lando objected. He stepped forward, and Anakin's count reached eight. "There's no call for -"

"Silence! If you know anything about the Yuuzhan Vong, then you know we have no fear of death." Duman looked back to Tesar. "You have five breaths."

Finally, something they had not planned for. Desperate to thwart the deadline, Anakin stepped over and kicked the villips off the commander's shoulder, crushed them beneath his foot.

"That will not save you," the commander said. "I have a personal villip on the bridge of my ship, relaying every word I say." He looked back to Tesar. "Three breaths."

Though Anakin's count had barely passed ten seconds, he knew better than to challenge the commander's word. Having proclaimed his willingness to die, it was now a matter of honor to follow through. He watched Duman Yaght's chest rise and fall two more times.

Lando must have been watching, as well; after the second breath, he snorted loudly. "Nobody's going to slag my ship." He started across the transfer deck to the inner hatch. "Not when there's no reason for it."

Alema Rar blocked his way and pointed her blaster at his face, then pulled the trigger as he moved to step past. There was a loud pop of a tripping safety breaker, then she cried out and dropped the smoking pistol.

Lando kicked the weapon aside. "You see? I've thought of everything." He snatched Raynar's blaster out of his hand, popped a retaining clip, reversed the power pack, adjusted the discharge setting, and dropped Tesar with a stun bolt. "Reversed power packs - standard safety precaution, at least when you're turning traitor on a company of Jedi."

Anakin and several others popped their retaining clips, but even Jedi were not that quick. Duman Yaght's protector caught Anakin in a leg scissors and whipped him to the floor, and Anakin found himself struggling to continue his count beneath a rain of blows.

The rest of the Yuuzhan Vong were also attacking, forgoing their coufees to lash out at the blasters in the hands of their foes. Even Duman Yaght joined the fray, leaping up to hurl Tahiri into an escape pod hatch. Blaster and power pack flew in two directions, and she wisely let herself slump to the deck.

The commander turned to Lando, pointed to the inner hatch. "Open it!"

Lando stepped forward, his hand reaching for the override. By Anakin's count, they were at twenty-five seconds. The two war droids would be searching the bottom of the shuttle for a place to anchor. Jacen sensed Anakin's worry, and Ulaha stepped forward to block the path, a long-fingered Bith hand flicking forward as she opened herself to the Force.

Jacen screamed first. Anakin experienced an instant of hot pain and thought his brother had been wounded, but then he heard Ulaha's whistle and saw the Bith stumbling forward, the handle of a coufee protruding from her back. Shock shot through the strike team like a stun bolt. No one had seen the attack coming, and the sudden pain dazed them badly. Anakin took two hard blows and felt the others reeling, too, and then bodies began to fall.

Across the deck, Ulaha lay facedown, too pained to scream, her fingernails raking the durasteel floor. Lando stood above her, dark eyes dazed with horror, but too much the gambler to show anything more. His knee flexed as though he might kneel down to pull out the coufee. Then he caught himself and stepped over the anguished Jedi and opened the inner hatch.

Another fist crashed down on Anakin, this time summoning misty shadows of unconsciousness. He forgot his count, but it had to be thirty - or as close as they were going to get. The floor began to reverberate with heavy footfalls, the rest of the boarding party rushing onto the transfer deck. Anakin reached out with the Force and hurled a discarded blaster pistol into his attacker's head and was rewarded with another blow, then the tip of a coufee touched his throat.

"Done, Jeedai!" the warrior hissed. "Understand?"

Anakin did not even dare to nod.

Duman Yaght barked an order. A pair of Yuuzhan Vong lifted Ulaha off the floor and passed her into the air lock, the coufee still protruding from her back. A familiar hollowness came to Anakin then - the same hollowness he had felt on Sernpidal, when he had been forced to raise the Falcon's nose and leave Chewie behind - and a cold fear rose inside him. They had barely made contact, and he had already gotten someone injured. Maybe this mission was too much for them. Maybe everyone was going to get killed just like Chewbacca - Lowie, Tahiri, even Jacen and Jaina. Maybe it would be his fault.

Jacen reached out to him, gently laving him with the emotions of the others. There was fear, anger, guilt. Anakin could not tell who was feeling what, except for Alema Rar.

Alema seemed to be relieved. No one had actually died yet, and she had made it this far without breaking down in terror. Things were going pretty well, it seemed to her.

Duman Yaght's voice sounded from somewhere beyond Anakin's feet. "I must admit, Fitzgibbon Lane, that I now understand why you destroyed their lightsabers. Had they gotten to those ... well, let us say I am happy they were disintegrated."

A pair of Yuuzhan Vong jerked Anakin to his feet, and he saw the commander standing with Lando as the boarding party lined the Jedi up for transfer. Anakin fixed his stare on Lando, wondering if there was not some way for the silky-tongued gambler to keep Ulaha aboard the Lady Luck.

Lando caught Anakin staring at him and allowed his gaze to linger a moment, then turned back to Duman Yaght. "It's all in the planning, but next time, I want some warning. If we catch them during a sleep cycle -"

"You will have your villip," the Yuuzhan Vong interrupted. "That is all I can promise."

Anakin's guards pushed him into the air lock. He stumbled on the threshold, but kept his gaze turned over his shoulder. He knew there was no safe way for Lando to retrieve Ulaha, but Lando Calrissian had a way of doing the impossible. Lando had spent his youth outwitting Imperial agents and swindling the deadliest criminals in the galaxy, and he had been rescuing the Solo children and their parents for longer than Anakin had been alive. Surely, Lando Calrissian could outwit one ambitious Yuuzhan Vong.

Lando met Anakin's gaze again. A haunted and fearful look came to his eyes, then Duman Yaght said something that required a laugh, and Lando had to turn his back.

 

Chapter 18

Instead of taking the sanibuffed corridor to the Errant Venture's parade deck, where two dozen eager academy students stood waiting to display their Force skills, Luke and his companions followed a freshly preened Booster Terrik into a lift tube and ascended directly to the bridge. The Star Destroyer could orbit Eclipse only so long before it risked exposing the base's location, so the last thing anyone in the group wanted was to spend time watching the HoloNet. Unfortunately, they had just received word that Nom Anor was about to address the senate regarding the Talfaglion hostages, and that Borsk Fey'lya himself had asked both Wedge Antilles and Garm Bel Iblis to attend. There could be no doubt that something major was about to happen, and that it would be of great importance to the Jedi.

Booster led them along the back of the bridge into the ship's comm center, where an old Imperial holoprojector sat at the far end of a conference table littered with datapads, science projects, and flimsiplast dye-paintings. In addition to Luke and Booster, there were Corran and Mirax Horn, Han and Leia, R2-D2 and C-3PO, and, fussing discontentedly in Mara's arms, Ben. Tionne and Ram Solusar were on the parade deck with their students, explaining that Master Skywalker was looking forward to seeing them very much and would be along soon.

Luke had not yet heard how Corran and Mirax had escaped from the voxyn on Corellia. Their story had been interrupted by news of Nom Anor's address, but they claimed it was nothing too exciting, save that they would need to find some way of quietly reimbursing Corellian Transport Services for a badly corroded hovertaxi.

Ben grew more disgruntled as the group gathered around the transceiver pad. He was normally the most imperturbable of babies - but there were times when he simply could not be consoled. Now, as R2-D2 tuned the ancient transceiver to the senate holoband, Ben broke into a fit of wailing. Luke felt Mara reaching out through the Force to calm him. When that did not help, he did so himself. Ben only cried harder. Mara sighed heavily and turned to take the baby into the next room.

Leia intercepted her. "Let me. I really don't need to see this."

Mara nodded and passed Ben over.

The infant calmed almost instantly.

Luke and Mara exchanged surprised glances, both feeling a little distressed that they had not been able to comfort their son themselves, but knowing there was more to it than that.

"I was thinking about Anakin," Leia said, her eyes fixed on Ben's face. "I was watching Mara and wishing there had been more time for me to hold him when he was this age."

Luke smiled and turned back to the holopad, where the cam was zooming in on a figure in the Grand Convocation Chamber.

 

To Viqi Shesh's eye, Nom Anor looked too certain of himself. Though Fey'lya had denied him the privilege of appearing in warrior's garb, the executor carried himself tall and haughtily, all but deaf to the taunts of the jeering senators, his one eye fixed on the high councilors' dais. He wore a shimmering robe of living glistaweb, nearly as proof against blaster bolts as vonduun crab armor, but far more innocuous - at least to those who did not know the secret of its charge-neutralizing fibers.

Nom Anor stepped to the center of the speaker's platform and waited for silence. It would be a long wait, Viqi knew. After Fey'lya's public declarations of support for the Jedi, the Jedi-lovers were content to wait for the Bothan's signal before they stopped heckling. Never one to miss a chance to bully an enemy, Fey'lya did not give Nom Anor a chance to correct his mistake. He leaned forward, peering down from behind his chief of state's console, and spoke into the microphone.

"You asked for this audience." Fey'lya's amplified voice reverberated through the chamber, quieting the hecklers. "Have you come to explain the Talfaglion hostages?"

Nom Anor's now-empty eye socket twitched. "Hardly. You understand the situation. I have come to inform you the warmaster has extended the deadline for the Jedi surrender."

The chamber burst into an astonished rustle. Viqi was as shocked as everyone else, for the warmaster was not the type to yield to Fey'lya's empty threats. Perhaps Nom Anor was playing some game of his own. Now that Fey'lya had thrown his support behind the Jedi, perhaps the executor believed he could strike a deal with the appeasers. Such a plan would have to be stopped and quickly, or it might be Nom Anor instead of her who replaced Fey'lya when Tsavong Lah's killers finally attacked. She did not understand what was taking the assassins so long. Most of the opportunities she had listed for them were already past, and so far she had not heard of even a suspicious loiterer near the chief of state.

Not waiting for the commotion to fade, Viqi activated her own microphone. "How do you explain this sudden attack of conscience, Mr. Ambassador?"

Nom Anor's expression remained far too smug. "The warmaster has come to realize it may be difficult for the New Republic to comply with his orders on short notice." He paused and turned away from the high councilors' dais to look directly into the galleries. "Last night, a concerned citizen turned over seventeen young Jedi -"

The convocation chamber burst into such an uproar that it was impossible to hear the rest of Nom Anor's statement. Viqi fell back in her chair, as stunned as the others in the room, and began to wonder how such a thing could happen. No bounty hunter in the galaxy could just fly out and collect seventeen Jedi - she doubted that even a company of bounty hunters could do it.

To restore order, Fey'lya was forced to darken the chamber, and even then he had to wait several minutes before he could make himself heard enough to order the sergeant at arms to have the security droids remove any senator who continued to yell. When light was finally restored, the Bothan's ears were flattened, and a long ridge of hair was standing along the back of his neck.

"I don't believe you," he said.

Viqi was inclined to agree, as was most of the senate. A rising murmur threatened to crest into another uproar, until the security droids brought the noise under control by issuing stern warnings about decibel levels.

Nom Anor sneered. "I have a list." He made a show of consulting a sheet of what looked like the shed skin of a snake, then said, "The leader is Ganner Rhysode. His assistants seem to be Tesar Sebatyne and a Wookiee named Lowbacca."

A plaintive howl echoed down from the Wookiee gallery, and a security droid was slapped out of the air by a hairy claw.

"The Bith Jedi Ulaha Kore was wounded resisting capture, and I certainly recognize the Solo name."

"Solo?" Wedge Antilles gasped. Along with Garm Bel Iblis, he was standing behind Fey'lya's seat for some reason Viqi did not yet understand. "You have a Solo?"

The chamber fell so quiet that the next question, from General Bel Iblis, would have carried to the top gallery even without being picked up by Fey'lya's microphone. "Which one? Anakin or the twins?"

The smug look vanished from Nom Anor's face. "Twins?" He quickly forced a sneer, but, to Viqi, the expression looked more sick than snide. "We have the three young ones."

The two generals glanced at each other with fallen faces, and Fey'lya's ears drooped, but only Viqi seemed to perceive Nom Anor's subtle shift of attitude. She did not know what significance twins had to the Yuuzhan Vong, but it seemed clear enough to her that there was one - and that, with a little help from her, Nom Anor would look like a fool to Tsavong Lah for not realizing it.

Viqi leaned forward and glared at the Yuuzhan Vong as though challenging his claim. "Jacen and Jaina are twins, Mr. Ambassador." She leaned back, then added with a disdainful smirk, "It's common knowledge. They're twins, just like their mother and Luke Skywalker."

Nom Anor's good eye narrowed, and he glared at her in open anger. "It does not matter what they are." He forced himself to look back to Fey'lya. "What I came here to say, what the warmaster wishes me to say, is that he is not unreasonable. He will spare the Talfaglion hostages as long as the New Republic continues to turn over its Jedi."

Fey'lya rose from his seat. "Never!"

Nom Anor ignored him and turned to the gallery. "A like number every ..."

His microphone suddenly went dead, preventing his last three words from reaching the senate gallery.

Viqi keyed her own microphone. "A like number every ten standard days. You have the right to know, whether the chief of state wants you to or not."

Her words instantly had an inflammatory effect, causing such a heated exchange that the security droids actually began to chase a handful of senators toward the exits with sting bolts. Fey'lya pressed a button on his console and rose, his voice now reverberating from both the chamber's public-address system and the individual conferencing consoles.

"What the chief of state wants you to know, whether Councilor Shesh wishes it or not, is how the Yuuzhan Vong conduct their diplomacy."

Mif Kumas, the senate's sergeant at arms, appeared at the edge of the chamber floor, his big Calibop wings fluttering madly as he struggled to keep pace with the three big defense droids used to deal with serious matters in the senate. Fey'lya glanced in Viqi's direction just long enough to bare his fangs, and she suddenly knew the chief of state remained alive not because of Tsavong Lah's tardiness in ordering the kill, but because the assassins had failed. Blood running cold, she calmly stood and turned to leave the high councilors' dais.

Fey'lya touched his control board, and his voice sounded from her conferencing console. "Going somewhere, Councilor?"

Viqi lifted her chin and met his violet eyes as steadily as she was able. "I have a personal need."

He smiled wickedly. "Stay. This won't take long, and I'm sure you will find it most ... enlightening."

Faced with prospect of being publicly stunned into submission by Kumas's protection droids or maintaining at least a plausible pretense of her innocence, she returned to her seat and tried to pretend she did not feel the thoughtful gazes of the two generals boring into her.

"I will trust you to make this fast."

"Of course. A quick kill is safest." Fey'lya touched a key, once again feeding his microphone into the public-address system, then turned back to Nom Anor. "Recently, a squad of Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators made an attempt on my life."

A half-doubtful murmur filled the chamber, and Viqi's stomach grew so qualmish she feared her "personal need" would soon become legitimate.

Fey'lya raised his hands. "There are certainly some who will view this as a cynical ploy to garner political advantage, but I assure you that is not the case." He glared down at Nom Anor, who had finally noticed the droids and Calibop approaching behind him. "My only desire is to make certain the appeasers in this body understand who they are dealing with. To that end, I have brought two men to substantiate this attack, a pair of generals whose honesty is beyond reproach and who - as many of you know - bear me no particular good faith."

He motioned the generals forward, and Wedge Antilles leaned to the microphone. "It was a well-planned attack."

General Bel Iblis was next. "Unfortunately, we were engaged in classified work and the details must remain secret, but it happened as Chief Fey'lya says. There can be no doubt."

The doubtful murmur quickly assumed a tone of outrage, and Viqi's stomach growled so loudly that her microphone picked up the sound. Fey'lya turned to her expectantly.

"Senator Shesh?" he asked. "Do you have anything to say?"

Viqi glared vibroblades at him. She checked the protection droids and found them hovering beside Nom Anor less than five meters away; only the certain knowledge that they would stun her before she could shoot kept her from palming her stealth blaster.

"What should I say, Borsk? I'm sorry?"

Fey'lya smiled triumphantly. "An apology is hardly necessary, Senator Shesh. You were only trying to save Kuat." He glanced in Nom Anor's direction. "As long as you see your mistake now."

"My mistake?" Viqi gasped, beginning to comprehend that her secret remained secret.

Perhaps her contact had been killed in the attack, or perhaps Yuuzhan Vong infiltrators were trained to withstand even modern interrogation techniques. It hardly mattered. Fey'lya thought he had defeated her challenge - her political challenge. Now he wanted to draw her back into the fold and consolidate his support, and he still had no idea what game they were really playing. No idea at all.

Viqi smiled and inclined her head. "I do see my mistake." She turned to glare at Nom Anor. "You just can't trust the Yuuzhan Vong."

 

"Oh my," C-3PO said to no one in particular. "Did you notice the interest Nom Anor showed when he discovered that Jaina and Jacen were twins?"

Neither Luke nor anyone else answered the droid, for their attention remained riveted on the holopad, where Borsk Fey'lya was gleefully informing Nom Anor of his arrest. It troubled Luke that the Yuuzhan Vong did not bother protesting his innocence. He merely glared at the Bothan as though they both knew the truth.

"Of course, it's impossible to know the significance of twins to the Yuuzhan Vong," C-3PO babbled on. "But in approximately ninety-eight point seven percent of the cultures in our own galaxy, they represent the dualistic nature of the universe: good and evil, light and dark, male and female. When the twins are in harmony, there is balance to the universe ..."

In the hologram, Mif Kumas fluttered forward with a pair of stun cuffs, his three protection droids arrayed in a triangle around the Yuuzhan Vong. To Luke's great surprise, the Yuuzhan Vong extended his arms and brought his wrists together - then grabbed his own little finger and tore it off. A string of black vapor sprayed out of the base, billowing up around Nom Anor and Mif Kumas in cloud of inky miasma.

The event seemed to lie outside the parameters of the protection droids' programming, for they did not open fire until the Yuuzhan Vong thrust the stump of his finger into the Calibop's startled face. Luke saw the first bolts strike Nom Anor's shimmering robe and blink out without causing him harm, then both figures vanished inside the expanding cloud of darkness.

Paying no attention at all to what was happening in the hologram, C-3PO continued, "But whatever the significance of twins to our enemies, I fear it will only make Jacen and Jaina's captors all the more vigilant. Nom Anor's reaction suggests -"

"See-Threepio!" Leia barked, returning to the room with Ben still quiet in her arms.

"Yes, Mistress Leia?"

"Silence yourself before I decide you need a memory wipe."

"A memory wipe?" C-3PO echoed. "Why in the world would I need a memory wipe?"

R2-D2 tweedled a suggestion.

"Well, I didn't mean to alarm Mistress Leia," C-3PO objected. "I only thought -"

Han reached behind the droid's head and tripped the primary circuit breaker.

"Thank you," Luke said, though he knew Han had silenced the droid for Leia and himself.

The scene in the hologram was confused, dark, and rapidly growing more so. Nom Anor's cloud quickly filled the holocam's view, and the protector droids stopped firing as they lost contact with their target. The operator pulled back to a wider view of the chamber, but the black fumes continued to expand, and even that view was obscured within a few seconds. The audio was filled with panicked screams and the sound of coughing and the thunder of running feet.

There was a moment of static as the chamber's ventilation and fire suppression systems activated, then the image began to clear rapidly. As the stairs and galleries grew visible again, they saw prone bodies lying everywhere - on the stairs, slumped over conferencing consoles, sprawled on communications ramps.

"Sith spawn!" Corran gasped. "He wiped out the entire senate!"

"Knocked out," Luke corrected. He was still trying to puzzle out Nom Anor's strange reaction to Fey'lya's accusation. Luke knew for himself that the attempt on the chief's life had occurred, since both Han and Leia had been at the proving trials when the assassins struck. Yet the Yuuzhan Vong had reacted as though it were political fiction. "This wasn't about destroying the senate. That kind of outrage would draw the New Republic together, and so far the Yuuzhan Vong have been trying to split it apart."

It grew apparent that Luke was correct as the image zoomed back to the chamber floor. Even there, where the cloud had been thickest, the bodies were beginning to stir, hoarse throats to rasp for air. Kumas's wings began to flutter again, while Fey'lya and the other councilors dragged themselves up and punched at their consoles, barking orders that made sense only to their confused minds.

The three protection droids lay inert on the floor, the last swaddled in the still-shimmering robe Nom Anor had been wearing. Of the Yuuzhan Vong himself, there was no sign.

"Got away clean," Han observed. "Probably had one of those masquer things around his waist."

"Maybe palace security will pick him up." Leia turned to Corran, who, as an ex-member of Corellian Security, had more experience in such matters than anyone else. "What do you think?"

Instead of answering, Corran only looked at her and Han with an expression of infinite sadness. He spread his arms and came around the table, Mirax following close behind.

"Han, Leia ... I'm so sorry."

"Hold on there, fella." Han backed away, one hand raised to ward off the embrace of the former CorSec officer who, a few decades earlier, might have been hunting him down instead of offering him comfort. "There's something you ought to know."

Corran stopped, looking equal parts hurt and confused.

Luke chuckled. "Corran, there's a reason I'm asking the Jedi to gather." He glanced in Booster's direction, then said, "But this has to stay secret - very secret."

Booster spread his palms and looked around the cabin. "Who am I going to tell?"

Luke explained what Anakin and the strike team were doing, and how Eclipse was trying to put together a group of Jedi to defend the Talfaglion hostages.

"Do you remember what you told Jacen after the fall of Ithor, that if there ever came a time when folks looked forward to the return of the man who killed Ithor -"

"Master, I was a little, uh, disappointed then," Corran said. "I didn't mean to sound bitter."

"And you didn't," Luke assured him. "But, Corran, the time has come. The invasion is out of hand, and the Jedi need someone of your experience to help us prepare ... to teach our young pilots how to fight as a unit and survive."

Corran considered this for a moment, then cast a querying look in Mirax's direction.

"What else are we going to do?" She hooked a thumb at her father. "Hang around with this old grouch?"

Booster scowled and started to retort, then threw up his hands. "I'm sworn to secrecy." He eyed Luke. "I suppose you'll be needing a Star Destroyer for this fleet of yours?"

"Not yet - where could we hide you?" As tempting as the offer was, Luke still wanted the academy students kept out of harm's way. "Admiral Kre'fey has converted that old smugglers' hole at Reecee into a rear base. He'd welcome an extra Star Destroyer there, and you'll be close enough to Eclipse to come running when things start to look bad."

Booster fixed Luke with a sour glare. "I know what you're doing, young fellow."

Luke smiled. "Good. I was starting to think you were slipping."

 

Chapter 19

The assault on Arkania began quietly enough. A few sensor alarms chimed in warning, then the silky voice of a female tactical controller reported the coordinates of the invasion fleet. A circle of darkness smaller than a thumbnail appeared at the indicated place and blocked the light of the distant stars. The dark area expanded quickly to the size of a human hand, then a head. The stars reappeared, winking in and out of sight as thousands of yorik coral ships passed in front of them.

A flurry of lightpoints sprayed out from the fleet, then swelled into the blue-white dots of plasma balls. They passed harmlessly through the mine shell - the droid brains were programmed to ignore weapons - then flared out of existence against the planetary shields. A volley of magma missiles followed. A storm of low-power stutter lasers flashed out from Arkania's new Balmorran Arms defense platforms to intercept and destroy the missiles on the far side of the mine shells. When the fire inadvertently struck and detonated one mine, the shell instantly realigned itself for optimum coverage.

Finally, what looked like an entire asteroid belt burst into the blue light of Arkania's sun. Dozens of large clearing ships went straight for the mines and opened their pointed noses, spewing rocky decoys into the shell. The rest of the fleet swirled out to surround the planet, spewing magma missiles and grutchins at the orbital defense platforms.

The TacCon's silky voice came over the blastboat's comm channel. "Guard ships take cover behind your platforms. Turbolasers will commence fire in three seconds."

The battered blastboat slid into the sensor shadow of the Wild Knights' assigned platform, and Danni's readouts went to zero. She slammed her palm against the console.

"How can I correlate anything from here?"

"You will have your chance, Danni Quee." Their platform opened up with its variable-pulse turbolasers, filling the darkness outside with sheets of colored light. Saba, sitting in her command chair near the front, half turned so she could fix a reptilian eye on Danni. "Use the wait to calm yourself. It is dangerous to enter a fight angry."

"I'm not angry."

"You feel angry to me," Wonetun rumbled from the pilot's seat. "And that'll get someone killed. Calm down or close up."

"You were angry when Mara came to tell us about Anakin's plan," Saba said. "Perhapz you wished to go along?"

"You're smarter than that," Danni retorted, "or this bunch of grutchin traps wouldn't have lasted this long. The last place I want to be is another Yuuzhan Vong holding cell."

"No anger there," Wonetun observed sarcastically.

"She is upset with Master Ssskywalker." Izal sat in the topside turret, his long tongue flicking the pale salt crust clinging to his upper lip. "She thinks he should have asked her."

Danni glared up at the Arcona. "Stay out of my mind."

"It is in your face, not your mind."

Danni was not certain she believed him - Izal could be a little sly when he was holding back on the salt - but there was no denying the irritation she felt at the suggestion.

"He shouldn't have let Anakin talk him into it," Danni said. "Those kids have no idea what they're getting into."

"The voxyn must be exterminated," Saba said. "Master Skywalker has surely considered the riskz."

"Master Skywalker has not seen a breaking," Danni shot back. "He has no idea."

"The strike team will commandeer the ship before the breaking," Saba said.

"Sure they will," Danni said.

Saba's scaly tail slapped the floor. "What would you have us do? Go after them?"

The sudden apprehension in the Force reminded Danni of what she was saying. Saba's face was so stoic and fearsome-looking that it was easy to forget she had emotions, too, and it had completely slipped Danni's mind that Saba's apprentices and son were with the strike team. Knowing the Barabel did not really understand the concept of an apology and would probably have found it disingenuous if she did, Danni did not even try. She simply gave a small nod.

"If we could find them, Saba, that's exactly what I'd do," Danni said. "I'd go after them."

Saba studied her with a black eye for a moment, then the TacCon's voice came over the comm channel. "Guard ships forward. Remember your areas, and stay close to your platforms."

"Let us do our own jobz first." Saba gestured at Danni's,instrument panel. "Knowing how the yammosks communicate does us no good until we understand their language. Did you not say that?"

Without awaiting a reply, the Barabel turned away and ordered the squadron forward. Though Danni's anger was gone, the Force was now filled with grimness and apprehension - and not only Saba's. Though the exchange in the blastboat had not been transmitted over the comm channels, the rest of the Wild Knights could sense their leader's anxiety. Danni instantly felt ashamed of her anger and regretted her thoughtless words even more than before. In a squadron that relied on empathy to bind it together, runaway emotions could get someone killed.

Danni focused her attention on her instruments and promised herself that she would coax every bit of data possible out of the battle. It was the only apology Saba Sebatyne would understand.

They emerged from behind the platform shields not into the maelstrom of whirling fighter craft that Danni expected, but into a meshwork of streaking missiles and flashing laser bolts. Having penetrated the mine shell, the Yuuzhan Vong capital ships were laying off, firing salvos of plasma balls and magma missiles at the orbiting defense platforms. One platform, an older KDY system designed for the turbolaser exchanges of the Rebellion era, was jetting a long plume of boram coolant into space. Otherwise, the enemy barrages were proving remarkably inefficient.

On the other hand, the motley assemblage defending Arkania - the planet's military, volunteer squadrons like Saba's, and a small New Republic task force rushed in to attempt a delaying action - were doing remarkably well. The slow but powerful KDY platforms were breaking up concentrations of enemy ships, preventing the invaders from mounting any sort of planetward thrust. The smaller but newer Balmorran Arms platforms used their long-range stutter lasers to destroy incoming missile volleys and pepper the big Yuuzhan Vong capital ships with showers of random-intensity attacks. Whenever a low-power laser struck yorik coral, a sensor detected the strike and automatically fired a pair of devastating blasts from the platform's charge-storing turbolasers. The system was as deadly as it was efficient, and there were already scores of lumpy derelicts spinning off into space.

What Danni did not see was a swarm of coralskippers rushing to disable the platforms. She checked her instruments and found all readouts hovering down near the bottom.

"What do they wait for?" Wonetun grumbled. "I see the skips on my sensor screen - clouds of them."

"Perhaps they fear the battle platforms," Saba said.

"No," Danni said, suddenly feeling relieved. "They never intended to come in. This is a feint."

"A feint?" Saba turned to look at Danni. "You cannot know that."

"Can't I?" Danni gestured at her instrument panel, where all of the data bars continued to hover near the bottom. "If the attack had truly stalled, don't you think the yammosk would be going wild?"

Saba left her chair and peered over Danni's shoulder for a long time, then finally said, "This makes no sense. They would conquer at half the strength."

"But not without cost," Danni said. "Perhaps their resources are not as limitless as we think."

Saba considered this for a moment, then turned to Wonetun. "Calculate a course for Eclipse."

"What about the Yuuzhan Vong?" Wonetun asked. "They're not going to let us -"

"The Yuuzhan Vong are going to withdraw," Saba said. "They are saving their fleet for something else - something we must warn Master Skywalker about."

 

Chapter 20

The door valve drew open, and Nom Anor stepped into the sweltering dazzle of the Glory Room. The warmaster, tethered into his cognition throne thirty meters away, could hardly be seen for all the blaze bugs warming the chamber with their crimson abdomens. Some of the creatures moved slowly through the air, and a few winked out or blinked on, but most hovered in place, each representing the known location of a capital starship or significant concentration of smaller craft. The scene was confusing to the eye alone, but a careful listener could identify a blaze bug's affiliation by the sound of its wings - low thrum for Yuuzhan Vong vessels, sharp drone for the New Republic, steady buzz for Imperial Remnant, and shrill whine for other infidels.

With the hum of the invading core enveloped on all sides by the high-pitched whirring of infidel forces, the situation sounded precarious at best. Had not a sour odor filled Nom Anor's nostrils as he moved through the enemy blaze bugs near the entrance of the room, he might have worried. As it was, the reek of disorganization and poor battle preparedness assured a swift Yuuzhan Vong victory, and the executor's success in dividing the New Republic Senate was undoubtedly responsible for the strongest part of that smell. Certainly, that was why the warmaster had left orders for him to report the instant of his return - or so Nom Anor hoped. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate.

He passed through the infidel areas into the Yuuzhan Vong invasion column, where the sour reek of confusion was replaced by the clyriz-like odor of organization and purpose. Instead of swirling about in confusion when he passed through, as had the blaze bugs in the New Republic section of the room, the bugs here simply fluttered aside, then returned to their places once he was gone.

As Nom Anor drew near the center of the chamber, the warmaster's cognition throne grew more distinct. A little smaller than an infidel landspeeder, the chair lumbered about on six squat legs, flashing a constant series of instructions to the blaze bugs via the soft glowtips at the ends of its hundred antennae.

The warmaster himself sat atop the throne in a neural cusp, his head swaddled in wormlike sensory feeds, his hands thrust into control sacks on the armrests alongside his body. Though Nom Anor had never himself mounted a cognition throne, he knew a skilled rider could join the creature so completely that he experienced the totality of the strategic situation at once. Each blaze bug's coded wingbeats identified not only the class and name of the vessel represented, but also the ship's condition and estimated combat effectiveness. The subtle undertones of odor suggested the morale of the captain and crew - estimates based on a complicated formula of known experience, effectiveness in previous battles, and the general tactical situation. Though Nom would never have said so aloud, he suspected the estimates tended to rate Yuuzhan Vong ships unduly high and infidel ships outrageously low.

The usual crowd of apprentices, subalterns, and readers parted to let Nom Anor pass, but only the apprentices and subalterns crossed their arms over their breasts. An amalgam of diviners and military analysts, the readers were responsible for gathering information on enemy capabilities and translating their knowledge into the blaze bug swarm. Each was also a priest of one of the many different gods to whom the Yuuzhan Vong paid homage, and as such technically subordinate to the Sunulok's priestess, Vaecta, rather than the warmaster - a fact they took every opportunity to emphasize. Nom Anor knew the arrangement to be a constant fang in Tsavong Lah's heel, but, at least to those who believed in such things, the precaution was necessary to avoid placing any of the other gods in symbolic servitude to Yun-Yammka the Slayer.

Trying not to read anything into the lack of envy in the eyes of those around him, Nom Anor stopped before the cognition throne and pounded his own chest in salute. "I come straight from the docking chamber, my master."

Tsavong Lah peered down from the throne, little more than eyes and mouth visible through his cocoon of sensory feeds. "As ordered - good."

Nom Anor's mouth went dry. No words of welcome, no hint of praise. "I am sorry that it took me this long to rejoin the fleet. My journey was delayed by the difficulties of leaving Coruscant."

"Not an easy thing to do with all of Planetary Defense hunting you, I am sure," Vergere's thin voice said. She pushed through the crowd and peered up from between two readers. "You are to be congratulated on your escape. It was most ingenious."

"Yes, planning is everything." Nom Anor had difficulty keeping the rage out of his voice, for he was convinced that Vergere lay behind the attempt on Fey'lya's life. He had considered the matter from every angle, and she had more to gain from it than anyone. "I'm only sorry it was necessary to disappoint you."

"Why would I be disappointed in your escape?" Vergere spread her arms. "Your value to our cause is well known to all."

As accustomed as Nom Anor was to the gamesmanship of politics, the subtle mockery of this half-pagan creature was too much. Not only had she interfered with his mission and nearly gotten him imprisoned, now she was ridiculing him before his master and peers.

"There is no need to play the shy bunish, Vergere." Nom Anor had to struggle to keep his voice icy, and even then his fury was tangible enough to draw a quiet murmur. "You are to be applauded on your ingenuity. I had not thought a mere pet capable of so much cunning - or daring."

Had Vergere been a Yuuzhan Vong, Nom Anor's words would have been enough to draw a blood challenge. As it was, the little creature only pricked her antennae. "Do you accuse me of what happened in the senate?"

"A bold attempt to remove a rival," Nom Anor confirmed. "Whether or not the assassination succeeds, I am blamed by the infidels and the warmaster both." He shifted his attention to Tsavong Lah. "The fact of my return stands as proof both of my worth to the Great Doctrine and of my faith in the warmaster's ability to see beyond such primitive ruses."

Vergere's beakish mouth opened as though she might hiss, then she caught herself and seemed to calm. "Do not blame me for your failures on Coruscant. It only makes you look more the -"

"Enough."

Though the warmaster spoke quietly, the mere sound of his voice was enough to silence Vergere - and save her life. Had she uttered the fateful fool, Nom Anor would have been not only within his rights, but expected to kill her on the spot.

"The assassination of Borsk Fey'lya - or the attempt - holds little interest for me." The shadow of a smile came to Tsavong Lah's lips. He manipulated something in an arm sack, and the throne's legs folded, lowering the warmaster to a more comfortable speaking level. "Before you arrived, Nom Anor, we were discussing General Bel Iblis's pathetic scheme to undermine the morale of our warriors with this nonsense about Jeedai twins. How did he think of such an idea?"

Nom Anor knew what Tsavong Lah wanted to hear, but he was not foolish enough to lie in the warmaster's presence - not with Vergere waiting to pounce on his every word. "I have no knowledge of how Bel Iblis prepares his plans."

"Then guess," Tsavong Lah said. "I command it."

Nom Anor's throat grew scratchy. The blaze bugs, temporarily released from their station by the idleness of the throne, began to descend on the group. The touch of their hot abdomens stung more than the stab of their proboscises, but such was the price of service. No one did more than shoo the ravenous creatures away from their eyes, and the readers did not do that much.

"My master, humans are not like Yuuzhan Vong. Twins are not an infrequent occurrence," Nom Anor said. In all of Yuuzhan Vong history, there had been only a few twin births - and these only when the gods wished it so. In each instance, one had murdered the other in childhood, then matured to lead the empire through a time of grave crisis. Lord Shimrra himself had murdered his twin brother before growing up to have the dream that foretold the finding of this new galaxy. "Their birth suggests no special favor of the gods."

"Then you are saying the Solo children are twins?" The reader who asked this was Kol Yabu of the Undying Flame, a "half-and-half" whose burn-melded body had been carefully shaped to appear male from one profile and female from the other. As an apostle of the Undying Flame, Kol Yabu worshiped the twins Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah, brother and sister gods of love and hate and all things opposite. "You admit that Jacen and Jaina Solo are twin Jeedai brother and sister?"

Nom Anor tried to wet his throat, but found his swallow as dry as bone dust. "I admit nothing, Reader." He looked toward Tsavong Lah and decided it was probably well that the warmaster's face remained hidden behind a glowing mask of blaze bugs. "Our spy, Viqi Shesh, claims the two Solos are twins, and that their mother and uncle are also twins. Perhaps she is the one we should ask about Bel Iblis's plan."

Tsavong Lah avoided the half-and-half's gaze by glaring at Nom Anor. "Viqi is either a traitor to her own people, or an infidel double agent. I have no faith in her."

"In this matter, we can trust only the opinion of a Yuuzhan Vong," Vergere agreed. Unlike the others, she was not limned in scintillating blaze bug light - perhaps because she kept ruffling her feathers to keep the hungry creatures at bay. "And Nom Anor was on Coruscant. Surely he took time to investigate a matter of such importance before fleeing?"

Nom would have liked to claim there had been no time, but he knew better than to think he could defeat Vergere's trap so easily. Deciding his only hope lay in the unexpected, he took a deep breath, then looked the warmaster in the eye and told the truth.

"There were many records to support Shesh's claim, my master, and I doubt they were planted. Even in obscure sources, I found nothing to contradict her." When the blaze bugs began to leave the warmaster's angry face and take wing, Nom Anor decided his only hope of redemption lay in a risky strategy. "Clearly, fortune was smiling on us when the one named Jacen escaped you at Duro."

The cognition throne trembled and hopped forward - no doubt in response to the clenched fists inside its arm sacks.

"Tell me how." The warmaster's voice was low and harsh, for he did not enjoy being reminded of how Jacen had used the Jedi sorcery a year earlier to rob him of a foot and prevent the sacrifice of Leia Organa Solo.

Nom Anor took a deep breath, then turned to Kol Yabu. "How would Yun-Txiin and Yun-Q'aah view the sacrifice of only one twin?"

The half-and-half considered this for a moment, then said, "The Twins do not demand sacrifices, but the Balance is all."

"That is not what the executor asked," Tsavong Lah said, glowering at the priest. "Answer clearly, or I will ask for a reader who does."

Kol Yabu's eyesacks paled; he - or she, Nom Anor had never checked to see which - answered to Vaecta, but such a request from the warmaster would not be ignored. "Offended is not the word, Warmaster. The Great Dance would grow unstable."

Tsavong Lah considered this and nodded. "I thought as much."

"If I may make a suggestion," Nom Anor said, determined to exploit his gains. "Perhaps Lord Shimrra would look favorably on a sacrifice of twin Jedi? You could have them fight each other, as Lord Shimrra fought his brother, just as the gods have ordained that twins must do since the beginning of Yuuzhan Vong history."

Tsavong Lah sat back in the cognition throne, considering. "It would make a great gift to Yun-Yuuzhan, would it not?"

There was no reader to answer, for only Lord Shimrra himself communed with Yun-Yuuzhan, the Cosmic Lord.

"They will never fight each other," Vergere said, always eager to undermine Nom Anor. "They are as close as a pilot and his coralskipper, these two."

Nom Anor was spared the necessity of countering her argument by the warmaster himself.

"We will have to break them first, that is all," Tsavong Lah said. "And Nom Anor should arrange to netcast the combat for the New Republic, I think."

"As you wish, Great Warmaster." Nom Anor allowed himself a quick smirk in Vergere's direction, then said, "Nothing could dishearten the Jedi more, I am sure."